Day 51

Day 51

I went back to Maryland for the weekend, to see my family. It was a short escape, but the first I’ve had since this all began. It was freeing, and disheartening. In my imagination I pictured this vast open world of normalcy outside the city. I found the vast open, but the world wasn’t any more normal.

The same masks, the same awkward greetings, the same plexiglass shields at the counter. The same answerless conversations, the same dance between anxiety and uncertainty, the same realization, the same resignation: we really just don’t have any clue what we’re doing.

Finding the same not-normal in the town I grew up in, home, it made all these new-normals feel more permanent.

I’m back in New York now, I had some things I needed to get done here this week. The streets are busier, they feel like they want to erupt again with life…but not just yet. I don’t know how long this is going to go on, I don’t know how long it can. Friends I know in the city all just have a broken tone in their voice. It’s indescribably sad seeing this city closed down this way.

Work said we likely won’t be back in the office until the end of June. I’m headed to West Virginia this weekend to see a college friend. Most restrictions have been lifted in that state, I’m curious to see what that looks like. Depending on what I find, Gizmo and I may just start driving west, for a couple of weeks at least. I can just work from the road. No particular destination, just wherever the day’s feeling goes.